Update Time

Hello, everyone!

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t read Heart-Shaped Hack yet but plan to, you may want to skip this entire post.

I’ve received quite a few tweets, e-mails, and private messages regarding the publication date of White-Hot Hack, so I’m going to try and answer some of your questions.

First of all, I’m overjoyed that so many of you are looking forward to spending more time with Kate and Ian. They’re two of my favorite characters and I’m glad I don’t have to let go of them just yet.

Many of you have asked how many books will be in the Kate and Ian series. I originally wrote synopses for three books because I’d tossed around the idea of writing a trilogy, but once I finished Heart-Shaped Hack, I realized the complete story could really be told in two books. Sometimes the second book in a trilogy can end up feeling like a set-up for the third and final book, and I didn’t want that to be the case here. If anything should change (and I don’t anticipate that it will), it will be clearly marked in the description of White-Hot Hack so you’ll know for sure whether it’s the final book.

Some of my readers were upset to discover there would be a sequel to Heart-Shaped Hack because they prefer to wait until all books in a series are published before they start reading. While I completely understand this, there’s a plot element in Heart-Shaped Hack that could have potentially been spoiled if this information had been shared at the beginning of the book instead of the end. (As I’d anticipated, most of you guessed the “twist” and those who didn’t probably spent some time around the 70% mark wanting to kill me). There were in-depth discussions between myself, my publicist, my beta readers, and my peers about the best way to handle this potential spoiler issue, and the consensus was to err on the side of caution. The fact that Heart-Shaped Hack can be read as a stand alone book was also taken into consideration. There is no cliffhanger and it’s a complete story with a happily-ever-after/happy-for-now ending. White-Hot Hack is simply the next chapter in the lives of Kate and Ian.

I’m not an especially fast writer and usually complete at least three drafts before I’m ready to send the manuscript to my beta readers. Then I need another 6-8 weeks after that to tackle revisions, polish the manuscript, go through the copyediting process, and have the final pass proofed and sent to the formatter. One book every 9 months is about the quickest I can write; anything faster and I’d be worried that the final product would not be well written and/or edited. This is just *my* process. There are many authors whose timelines are much faster. The official publication date of White-Hot Hack won’t be released until I have a better idea of my timeline for finishing, but I’m shooting for late spring/early summer. I’m working on the blurb now, but I’d like to get a little further in the writing process before I release it. This helps me avoid having to tweak it later if something should change plot-wise.

I’ll be revealing the cover soon (sometime in the next 3-4 weeks). I can’t wait to show it to you!

If you’d like, you can add White-Hot Hack to your Goodreads shelves here.

Thank you for your enthusiasm, everyone! And please feel free to reach out to me via social media should you have any further questions.

Have a great day!